


Desert Rats

by shiiera



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: AU, Abandonment Issues, All Ben wants to do is protect Rey from the evil world, Angst? Yes, But that's hard to do when you're just too orphans :(, Desert orphans, F/M, Mutual Pinning, Probably won't get to that "point", Slow Burn, The Force Made Them Do It, We are definitely not riding the happy train here, psst unkar is not that bad he's just misunderstood
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:37:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7391137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiiera/pseuds/shiiera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some unknown reason, fate strands Ben Solo on the desert planet of Jakku and, years later, meets a young girl who unfortunately has come to meet the same fate. Together they have to navigate through the harsh trial that is living on Jakku as a orphans, all the while holding onto a glimmer of hope that one day someone will come for them.</p><p>An AU where Ben and Rey grow up on Jakku together</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

There were many different sounds that could be heard within the tents of Niima Outpost; conversations in varying languages of faraway planets, the clanking of parts and equipment, the rumbles of shuttles and spaceships, and the gurgles from large animals resting on the outskirts from a hard days work of hauling pounds of junk and parts through the desert for their owners. But there was one sound that was never heard amongst the tents of Niima; the one of a child.

A crying child at that.

In his five (or was it seven?) years serving the greedy ‘owner’ of Niima Outpost, Unkar Plutt, as a mechanic for portions, Ben Solo had never heard children at the outpost. As far as he had known, he was the only child there. An orphan, abandoned, at the mercy of space pirates and smugglers for survival when Plutt decided his work wasn’t worth even a quarter portion. To have another child at the outpost meant only one thing, this one was also casted aside like the junk Unkar Plutt’s scavengers hunted for in the deserts of Jakku.

The fourteen year old boy approached the tent that was adjacent to Unkar’s own office, looking warly around for any of the outpost boss’ henchmen. Being caught away from the ships that rested outside the outpost would mean another day’s worth of portions lost and he couldn’t afford another day of not eating. He was already forced to forfeit two days’ worth of portions when one of the henchmen reported to Plutt that he did more work than what was ordered for ten extra portions; another day of not eating and he was sure he’d be too hungry to continue fixing the increasing workload of ship repairs. If there was one thing Ben Solo knew, Unkar Plutt had eyes everywhere.

With a slow exhale, he pushed aside the sand coated tarp aside and entered the tent. Huddled on the sand near a dusty stack of junk parts of no value was a girl, probably no older than 5, sobbing with her face buried behind her knees. Her hair was pulled into three distinct buns, hair falling free from their hair ties that futility held in them in place. The tunic she wore was tattered, as if she was wasn’t of much value – a slave perhaps? Ben did not know what to think of the human girl before him. It was peculiar, that much was certain, but he couldn’t figure out why a girl would be in a tent as if she was nothing more than the parts that were scattered around them in piles.

Working up some courage, he approached the girl and crouched in front of her. She didn’t bother to look up, her sobbing unrelentless, though nothing more now than sniffles and silent sobs muffled from behind her knees. He reached out for her but hesitated, bringing his right hand to rest on his knee instead.

“ Hey,” He whispered, throat dry and voice scratchy from the hot wind and sand, “ Hey… what’s the matter?”

She looks up at him and with a hand covered in dirt and grime, wiped her nose and shook her head. Ben shifted slightly to return some feeling to his numbing calfs, and reached into his loose cream colored outer robe, pulling out a stained white rag. It was slightly damp, used to wipe the sweat from his brow while working on replacing carburetors on ships, but he didn’t have anything else better to offer the girl. The girl looked at the scarf and then once at teenager before her. Warily, she took the rag from him.

“ Thank you…” She said quietly. He smiles, a small one, but a smile none the less. At least he’s gaining some ground.

“ No problem. So, what’s the matter? You lost?”

She shakes her head, eyes red rimmed from hours of crying, “ My family left me.” Her tiny voice is hoarse. If it wasn’t for the thickness of the tarp around them shielding them from the loud noises outside he wouldn’t have been able to hear the little girl. Given her accent, he was certain that she was definitely from off world – probably from one of the more developed, lawful, planets of the New Republic. Definitely not a slave.

“ Left you? Why would they do that.”

“ They said they’ll be back.” She idly pulls at a loose strand on the rag, “ They told me to wait.”

No one comes back to Jakku, Ben grimmly thinks to himself, as his own family has yet to come for him – whoever they are. But he can’t bring himself to tell a child something as cruel as that so he stands up and wipes his hands on his brown pants deciding against it.

“ I’m sure they’ll return.” He says instead. “ They will be back.” A lie.

Before the girl could respond, the tarp moves from behind and Ben can hear someone enter; the heavy breathing and presence of larger individual giving away exactly who he is. The girl tenses in front of him, gripping the rag, and the young mechanic has no other choice but to curse himself. He was guaranteed to be denied his portions for today’s work now after this stunt. Apparently Unkar Plutt’s eyes go farther than he had anticipated.

“ What are you doing in here, boy?” Unkar Plutt drawls, his breath sickly close against the back of his neck. Just a year or two ago, Ben barely reached the creature’s shoulders in height and now he was almost at even with him. In another few years, he was sure to tower the outpost boss. It still didn’t matter though, as the Crolute’s weight coupled with his anger and influence only meant a losing battle. “ I thought I told you never to leave the repair station.”

“ I heard someone crying,” Ben says as he turns to face the Crolute. “ I wanted to see what it was. It sounded like she was in trouble.”

Unkar Plutt wasn’t one for facial reactions, his face was in a constant state of anger, but he scoffs and perhaps Ben wouldn’t be out of a meal tonight, “ She’s in no trouble, boy. She’s mine. A scavenger sent to me.”

“ I see. I’m sorry… I let my curiosity get the best of me.” Ben knows that the story behind the girl isn’t so clear cut but he decides not to press Plutt about it.

“ Don’t apologize, boy.” His eyes narrow, slightly. “ Had you not run off like you always do, you would have known that I need you to take watch the child. Teach her about parts, get her up to speed on how to survive on this planet. A dead scavenger is no use to me.”

“ I’m not a scavenger, though—”

“ It doesn’t matter.” Unkar Plutt says abruptly, “ I have no time for a child. I have an outpost to run.” He glances over the mechanic’s shoulder at the girl; she flinches away. “ I will up your portions to two a day.”

“ T-two?”

A portion a day was his pay for a day’s worth of repairs. A portion, which was barely a meal as it is, provided a roll and a small piece veg-meat – and that was if he happened to be lucky. Two portions meant that it would be enough for one person to eat for a night but two? Unkar Plutt wasn’t a stupid man; a child required more to eat than a lanky teenager that could barely fill the sandy robes he wore. He was still being punished for the ten portion incident.

Still, it was better than the quarter or half portions that the scavengers employed under Unkar Plutt received. 

“ Yes,” He says with a sharp toothed smile as he looks at Ben. It makes the teenager feel sick – though he can not tell if that is from the lack of eating these past two days or the fact that Unkar Plutt’s entire existence was something reprehensible to anyone with a sense of decency. “ One for you and one for the girl.”

Ben opens his mouth but Unkar cuts him off, “ But, if you can get the girl up and on her feet I’m sure I’ll bit a bit more… generous with the portions.”

The creature, which looked something comparable to a greasy bloated lard covered with sagging skin, stepped out the tent leaving the two orphans alone again. While the girl was no longer crying or frozen in absolute fear, she looked exhausted. Ben glanced at the girl, running a hand through his thick, wavy hair pushing the locks that had gotten loose over the course of the day back and away from his face. It was a futile attempt as some of his unruly hair had fallen again, black locks framing his face and covering his large ears. Ben sighs in frustration, undoing the bun and with both hands pulls his hair back into a loose ponytail with an obvious frown on his features.

Then he hears a quiet giggle.

The little girl is smiling, toothy and full of mirth. Ben’s hands fall from his hair slowly and for the first time in weeks he smiles as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The God honest truth is that the last fanfic I wrote was in 2011 (which u can find [here](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7286334/1/A-Red-Light-Turns-On) if like zutara). I am so rusty at this so I do apologize about how "not good" this story is. This is totally not beta'd. 
> 
> This was honestly inspired by a piece of fanart I stumbled on while browsing [Tumblr](http://lazy-afternooner.tumblr.com/post/137046196711/scavenger-cousins-hes-just-doing-his-best). I thought it was such an interesting AU and I figured that since there's so many fanfics that focus on Rey being taken into the Skywalker family, how about a good ol' switcheroo? :D
> 
> There is a reason why these two are on Jakku and I hope to explore that with this fanfic. I definitely do not want to make it a long narrative, but rather glimpses into these two lives (also i suck and can't keep up with a long epic tale). I would love to read everyone's thoughts :3 
> 
> Thanks for reading.
> 
> ps -> [come roll in the trashbin with me](http://shiiiera.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben tries to postpone the inevitable.

Ben could not remember when he arrived on Jakku. He stopped counting the days once Unkar Plutt sent him to the repair yard as one of his outpost’s cheap labor as a mechanic. Long days spent repairing ships made the young boy lose track of time, not realizing how much time has past until the wrenches he carried in the tool belt around his too slim waist, that were once too big finally fit perfectly in his now large hands. His childhood was nothing more than blurred memories, images that he could no longer make sense of. It seemed that the older he got the more he began to doubt that he even had a life before arriving.

Perhaps he always lived on Jakku. Maybe he never had a life somewhere else, somewhere far away with a family and friends that loved him.

His dreams spoke otherwise.

He watched the young orphaned girl sleep on his pallet of blankets in the corner of his salvaged home, a crashed shuttle near the _Starship Graveyard_. An unfortunate piece of collateral damage from the Battle of Jakku, the ship’s owner probably did not expect to fly into a war zone -- let alone get shot down. The individual probably survived; Ben didn’t find any skeletal remains near or in the shuttle when he first stepped into rust bucket.

It was small, half of the ship inhospitable due to the damaged it received upon impact when it fell from the stars years before Ben was born. The cockpit and single bunk were lightly damaged; the cargo hold was a mess of twisted durasteel and half buried in sand. The starship was the first thing he found after leaving Unkar’s outpost nearly three years ago. Of course, the creature didn't appreciate the action and reduced his portions accordingly for the insubordination. When he first discovered it, it was fairly large for the eleven year old boy but now it was a tight space and the latest addition did not help with the livable space issue he was now experiencing.

Today, Unkar was in a better mood. He received two and a half portions; one each for him and the girl and a half for taking responsibility for the girl’s training. He gave them all to the girl, rationing out the remainder of his ten portions for himself. The dreaded ten that caused him two days worth of food. Usually he would negotiate deals on the side for the extra food even though he understood that undercutting Plutt was asking for trouble. But he needed to eat and if he could get more out of the deal, why not? He was working for a portion a day; Plutt was earning _credits_ for his hard work. If Ben could get paid in the amount of credits Plutt overcharged, he was sure he could purchase two crates worth of portions.

Once Ben learned the hustle, he made sure to not go hungry more than he needed too.

As the girl rolled over in her sleep, Ben wondered if she remembered her life before Jakku. Considering her pale skin and smooth features, it didn't seem as if the girl worked a day in her life. So why would her family drop her off on a planet that work was the key to survival? Why would anyone throw away their child?

None of that mattered though. She was just like him -- alone with no family out there who cared enough to not leave them stranded on a planet full of scavengers. Eventually, he figured, she would forget her family and past and her days will blur into nothing with a bleak future spent stealing and cleaning parts for food.

“ No one comes back to Jakku,” Ben mumbles to himself, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back against the durasteel wall of the transporter. “ No one. “

 

***

 

She was a quick learner. That was the first thing Ben had noticed about the child when he brought her back to the outpost and to the repair yard. She couldn't hold the tools and the parts were too big for her tiny hands, but she could name them and with enough reputation understand what purpose each part served to a starship.

It would help her tremendously in the long run once Unkar sent her off into the desert to salvage old parts. If she couldn’t tell what was valuable, she would be bound to die from starvation unless one of the far off villages took mercy on her poor soul. Being a female didn’t matter; a scavenger was a scavenger and one employed under Plutt was bottom of the barrel.

“Your name is Rey, right?” Ben asked as he worked on a transporter. It was small, enough for one pilot and their cargo. Apparently their compressor went bad and needed a replacement and just luck of the ship’s owner to be stranded on Jakku. The compressor the poor guy bought from Unkar Plutt was garbage and overpriced. The mechanic couldn’t bring himself to admit it to the customer though.

“ Yeah.”

“ Last name?”

“I don’t have one.”

Ben was standing on a small platform, his upper body deep within the belly of transport ship he was working on. Wires and parts hung from the narrow opening he managed to fit himself in, the broken parts scattered on the sand beneath him. He knelt down, enough so he could see the girl standing near the ship with a wrench too big in her tiny little hands.

“ You sure?” He tosses a rusted part onto sand with a thunk. Rey looks at it, taking note of it’s shape. A compression pipe.

“ All I remember is Rey.”

The part isn’t worth much. Perhaps a quarter portion if she was lucky.

“ Let me see that wrench.” Ben extends his hand out to her and she hands him the tool. His fingers brush against the tips of hers and he can’t help but notice that they’re soft, the digits not having experienced a single day’s labor. He mentally grimaced at the thought that within a few months they’ll begin to be just as calloused his own.

A few days later, Ben gives her a pair of gloves. They’re too big for her hands; they’re old and rough but she tries them on anyway.

“ It’s to keep your hands from getting rough,” He pauses, looking down at his own two. Black dirt was caked underneath his nails and calluses covered his thumbs and palms. “ Once they get that way, it’s hard to get rid of it.”

She only nods. The little girl is too young to understand the subtle warning.

 

***

 

It’s nearly six months after her arrival that Ben takes her to Unkar Plutt to trade parts for portions. He hadn’t taken her to the _Starship Graveyard_ to find the parts, rather they were from his own personal stash that he would use to barter ‘better deals’ from the Spacers that arrived on Jakku for repairs. Ben could remember the first time he stood on that line, a sack full of random parts he found in the sand, dwarfed by the many scavengers looking for their cut of Unkar Plutt’s aged portions. He was overwhelmed and hungry.

The Blobfish knew this.

For the bag of random parts, he received a half portion. At the time he thought he hit the jackpot…

… it was only a week later did he realize that Unkar Plutt had undercut him.

“ I see you have the girl working already.” Unkar says with a slight tinge of amusement in his gruff voice as Ben dumps the bag of parts onto the oversized creature’s counter. Rey can barely see over the counter and she is sort of glad that she can’t look into eyes of, what everyone outside of Plutt’s earshot called, the Blobfish.

“ She’s a quick learner,” Ben replies cooly, “ For a girl her age it’s impressive.”

“ I _am_ impressed.” He picks up a piece, inspects it, “ That such little hands were able to clean this part so well.”

“ I cleaned them.” A pause. “ She wouldn't be able to clean them as well as you would have liked.”

Unkar Plutt hums to himself, “ One quarter portion.” The piece, along with the rest of the bag, is tossed from his fat hands behind him like trash. Ben frowns; he could have gotten at least five portions for it if he sold it to a smuggler at the outpost -- easily. Unkar would have given him half of that; more than the quarter he just offered.

“ Surely you realize that these are worth double than a quarter.”

Plutt reaches from his stash of rations and slams a quarter’s worth on the counter.

“ When the girl actually works for herself then I'll probably reward her. Don't take me for a fool, boy.”

Ben looks at the payment begrudgingly before taking it. He glances at the small girl and she looks up at him with an expression of disappointment, like they just lost a game. Except this wasn't a game; it was survival. Rey was barely six and the world was still new to her. She may not understand it now but eventually Jakku would suck her innocence and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Which is why he strived to keep her away from Unkar’s business and occupied with only childish wonder at strange aliens, rogue smugglers, and wild spacers.

It was working.

They made their way out of Unkar’s tent and through the bustling crowd of Niima’s Outpost silently, the little girl taking double the steps to keep up with the taller teenager’s wider strides. From afar it would have looked odd on any other planet; what were two children in tattered sand-colored robes doing in such a shady outpost such as Jakku’s Niima but to the residents of the planet, it was a normal, if not unfortunate, site. They stop in front of a speeder that’s nearly double Ben’s age, which sat outside the gates of the outpost. He runs his hands against the chipped red paint, sighing in frustration.

Rey looks up at him, slowly reaching for the end of sand-colored robe wrapped around his upper body. It was frayed in certain sections, secured tightly against his skinny frame with a black belt that had seen better days. She grips onto the fabric, tugging slightly and pulling Ben out of his thoughts. He looks down into innocent hazel eyes and gives her a small smile that doesn’t reach his brown eyes.

Ben reaches inside his robe and pulls out the single quarter portion. He hands it to the little girl and she releases his robe, taking the portions into her own tiny, gloved hands.

“ You lied.” She says. There’s no tinge of disappointment or shock, it’s more or less a statement. He glances at the girl, contemplating what she said, and then extends his arms out to her, a sign she takes as to get into the speeder. She obliges, allowing him to pick her up and lifter her into the aged one seater.

“ Sometimes you have to lie to survive.” Ben says once he’s on the speeder, securely behind her.

The engine starts, then quietly, “ Thank you. “

The teenager glances down at the girl securely sitting between him and the handlebars of the speeder. Perhaps, he thinks to himself as he adjusts his goggles over his eyes, she understands more than what he had originally thought.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter should be the last of the story's set up. Again, thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey goes missing and Ben has visions.

“ Look at this! How much do you think the Blobfish will pay for it?”

Ben looks up at the twelve year old girl from his seated position at the cockpit of their ‘home’, taking a pause from tinkering with an old salvaged part he was trying make useable for a repair he was hired for on the side. If he got the ship to work, the smuggler would pay him with nearly 30 portions; if the job was excellent, double. Placing the part down on the broken control panel next to him, he watched as the girl held an old Alliance fighter pilot’s helmet in front of her. It was scuffed and caked with dirt, the markings nearly faded and obviously too big for the young girl’s head.

It’s a relic. That much was for sure. Perhaps, some place far away from Jakku, someone would have pay a decent price for a piece of galactic history that changed the entire political landscape but on a place like Jakku, especially Niima Outpost, it's nothing but junk. Unusable and worthless to anyone but history nerds and die-hard enthusiasts.

“ If it can’t be installed in a ship -- “ Ben begins.

“ It’s worth nothing. Yeah, yeah, I know.” Rey finishes with a roll of her eyes.

This wasn’t the first time they’ve had conversations like this, especially when Ben was finally forced to let the young girl off into the  _ Starship Graveyard _ to start scavenging for herself and fully return to his job as Unkar Plutt’s mechanic. There were so many times where she would come home, dragging a bag full of parts and random oddities that caught her interest. She would yell his name out into the quiet desert and he would step out of the transporter, wiping his hands with his rag, meeting the girl’s excited grin with a small smile of his own.

Those times he was worried for her safety more than anything, finishing jobs quickly to be back before she arrived. Jakku was unforgiving but the creatures that resided on the planet were worst; willing to kill in order to survive. How could a child like herself handle the trenches of the  _ Starship Graveyard _ without the help of the mechanic, he didn’t know. But as long as she came home safely every night, that was more than enough to ease his nerves until the next morning where life repeated itself.

He glanced at the long staff that rested against the warped durasteel on the other side of the transporter, near the half buried cargo bay. The salvaged piece, made up of several parts of crashed ships, proved to be a worthy defense tool for the girl. He made sure of it, testing it against the hull of a junk ship that sat outside the edges of Niima. The staff was fine but the hull received the markings of a frustrated teenager. Ben could only imagine the amount of times she actually had to use it outside of his assault on Plutt’s possessions.

“ But could you imagine… like this must be priceless, you know?” Rey inspects the helmet in her hands. “ Imagine what the person saw in that battle… In that  _ war _ .”

“ I'm sure if you look harder in those fields you'll find even more of those helmets. More storm troopers than Alliance fighters, probably.” He crosses his arms over his broad chest, “ It's a sea of ghosts out there and the living aren't concerned over the possessions of mere ghosts.”

_ Or at least the living of Jakku _ .

He watches Rey’s reaction as her hands that held the helmet slowly fell in front of her person with a sigh.

“ I guess you're right.” She mumbles, albeit with a bit more anger behind the words than he had anticipated. Without another word, Rey turns around and makes her way outside the transporter. More than likely she was gonna toss the helmet into sand along with the other relics Ben always warned her against keeping. Usually she’d come right back in, plopping herself into the co-pilot’s chair and start rambling about the day’s work she performed.

So he picks up the part he was working on and continues to fix it anticipating the girl’s usually loud return within any minute. Ben takes a screwdriver, attempting to unscrew a screw from the piece but no matter how much strength he puts into the screw, the piece of metal does not budge. Frustrated, he tosses the piece back onto the control panel and reaches for the makeshift curtain that covered the viewport, protecting the inside from Jakku’s sun and heat, pushing it aside slightly.

The sun was setting, casting the sky in brights hues of oranges and purples. Soon the heat would quickly dissipate, leaving those exposed to chilly unforgiving nights. The sand dunes of Jakku were a grey-ish blue, with the ones far off into east already black against moonless night that was gradually making its way across the sky, sucking the oranges and purples into its vice grip. These nights were one of the worst to be caught outside. People that wondered Jakku on a moonless night were usually never to be seen again -- or that was what Unkar Plutt told him many years ago when he tried to escape for the first and last time.

He was twelve years old then. Young, frustrated and extremely naive. Now he was barely twenty-two and stuck with the responsibility of a twelve year old.

Ben sighs in frustration as he closes the curtain.

He was older, a man now, but he was still that stubborn child that was abandoned nearly fourteen years ago. Unkar Plutt still made it a point to this day to always call him the ‘stubborn boy’, a constant daily reminder that all his problems were his fault and no one else.

Noticing that Rey had not returned inside the transporter, Ben stands up and stretches -- or at least makes an attempt to as his head knocks against the short durasteel ceiling of the makeshift home. His height made things that were possible five years earlier nearly impossible now. Rey was amused at the fact that he now needed to tread the small living quarters hunched over in fear of banging or bumping his head but it was anything but for the young mechanic. Eventually they (or he) would need to move -- to find some place bigger to accommodate them (or himself). Rolling a kink out his right shoulder, Ben makes his way outside the transporter, pushing aside the heavy tarp that separated the inside from the outside.

The sky is nearly black, the western horizon just a speck of purple and dark orange as the stars come out to play above. A quick glance around and Ben notices that Rey is not there. He frowns, stepping out further into the desert and looks around. No girl in sight; not even the worthless helmet.

A panic starts bubbling in his chest. He’s told her about Jakku on nights like this -- what happens to those that wonder -- and yet he can't stop the increasing fear that she did exactly that. That he pushed her to the point of running away with stupid helmet into desert and nothing else and now she won't be coming back.

Ever.

She’s only twelve; not even up to his chest in height. There's no way she would have gotten far. If he went searching now he could find her before the sun completely sets, leaving them blanketed with the darkness of Jakku’s moonless night. If could collect his thoughts and just  _ focus _ maybe he won’t screw this up like every other time he decided to act carelessly.

He runs a hand through his hair to collect his thoughts, then, “ Rey!”

His voice echoes off into the distance but there's no reply. Again he yells and again no reply.

This is not happening.

It can’t be happening.

He runs farther into the desert, up a dune, nearly tripping over the loose sand that refused to defy gravity and just stay in place. Once atop of the sand dune, he calls her name but he hears nothing -- no sound, no wind,  _ nothing _ . Just the sound of his erratic heartbeat against his ears. Thump, thump,  _ thump _ . Ben closes his eyes for a brief second and then opens them.

This isn’t Jakku.

He doesn’t know what this place is called but one thing he does know for certain is that it is  _ not _ Jakku.

It’s a ship. A freighter.

He doesn't recognize it. He swears he's never stepped foot in one like  _ this  _ but he can't get over the sense of familiarity. Like he has been there once before… Only he couldn't remember exactly  _ when _ . The scuffed durasteel walls, the cold recycled air, rounded corridors and soft hummings of the ship’s engines. All so familiar yet not.

Ben hears crying down the corridor. He turns around towards the sound of a child’s tears, feet slowly moving hesitantly, wary of what lies ahead. The sounds become louder until they are clear as day. He looks around, expecting to find a child but there is no child in sight. Instead, there’s a booth with a table in one corner with a game he couldn't quite name but knew he had played it once. The opposite corner from where he stood lead to another corridor that wrapped around the other half of the ship. The open space was filled with various crates of unmarked cargo stacked against the walls.

Closing his eyes, Ben runs a hand through his loose hair and opens them again. He's still on the freighter and the tears continue from a child hidden somewhere in that very space. He looks down at his feet, the grated durasteel floor finally giving Ben the answer to the source of the cries. He kneels down, reaching for the hatch on a floor panel door that lead to wherever the child was hiding at.

Then he hears a voice calling from the distance and his hands freeze. Is this ship trafficking humans? He looks around the room; its clear that this isn’t just any other freighter -- it does a lot more than hauling goods. The mechanic looks towards the direction of the sound. He can't make out what is being said. It's muffled like he was being submerged in water, unable to surface to hear clearly what was being said.

Yet, the child’s tears are distinct and clear to Ben’s ears.

A man appears from around a corner but Ben can't make out the face -- he feels like he knows this person but he can't remember who or what they are. Yet, he can vaguely remember this person -- the jacket he wore, the black pants… the blaster that sat on his hip in the holster. It’s all blurred details; like he’s watching the man through watery eyes with only vague details standing out amongst the rest of what could not be seen.

It's too confusing. Everything is confusing him. He has no recollection of this place and of that man yet the familiarity of it all sings close within his heart and mind. He  _ has _ been here before and he  _ knows _ this man before him. Yet he can’t put a face to him -- he can’t  _ remember _ his face -- and whatever the man is saying, he can’t make sense of it at all. It’s mumbled and muted, voice completely unrecognizable to the twenty-two year old.

Ben doesn’t know if he’s physically there or not, but the man pays him no mind -- as if he’s not even in the room. He reaches out, opens his mouth, but nothing happens. Words don’t leave his lips despite his own mind going miles and miles per minute. He’s left to watch, unable to do anything but stand up, step back and watch as the ghost of a man kneels down onto the floor, lifting up a hatch and revealing a young boy.

“ Ben… “ The man’s muffled voice is clear. His voice is calm, loving. Worried. Sad.

The mechanic freezes. He… he has heard this voice before. Once.

“ There you are…”

But he doesn’t remember when he heard it or who it belong to. The voice sounded too kind… too…  _ sad _ . Regretful. Like he was pitying the crying child hiding away in the maintenance hole.

But everything felt so real to him. Too real.

“ Don't leave me.” A whimper followed by a hiccup.

He had been there before. This…. happened to him.

The man reaches down into the hole and two little hands grab on to his forearms. The blurred man hauls the child up and the moment Ben sees the mop of wavy black hair he gasps.

That child is him. He doesn’t need to see the face to know that it was him.

The man holds the child close to him as if he was trying to shield him from some unseen evil in the room. Strong arms wrapped around a tiny frame protectively as if this man was this boy’s father.

“ I’d never leave you, kid.” A whisper against a small ear.

Everything goes black.

 

***

 

Eyes open to a starlit sky. Looking around Ben realizes he is back on Jakku, the soft sands a cushion against his tense body. He grazes the sand with his fingers, the sand still warm in contrast to the now cool breeze that was softly blowing against his skin. This was home. This was what he knew.

A helmet comes into his vision, “ Ben… You okay?”

_ Rey… _

He closes his eyes and swallows spit to moisten his dry throat, “ … Y-yeah.”

“ I guess passing out outside is a new hobby.”

At least she’s safe. By the sound of her voice it didn’t appear as if she was crying or angry at him. In fact, it seemed as if she was there the entire time which muddles the situation for Ben further.

What exactly did he experience?

Where did he go?

A hand is held out to him. He looks between the hand and the helmet, unable to connect the two. Things weren’t making much sense to him.

A moment.

Ben realizes the voice is coming from the helmet. Rey’s head is completely engulfed in the oversized headpiece. She’s only visible from the neck down and she looks absolutely ridiculous. He reaches up and his large hand pushes the helmet further down eliciting a high pitch screech from the girl as she fumbles forwards in shock. Rey swats his hand away and rocks backward on her heels to regain herself.

“ Where were you?” He would frown but Ben is too exhausted to bother with the display of emotions. She blinks but he can’t see it with the visor covering her entire face.

“ Here…?” She stands up effortlessly, wiping sand on her pants. She takes off the helmet and tucks it under her right arm. “ I went out to toss the helmet but figured I’d keep it. I come back and you’re passed out in front of the transporter.”

Ben sits up and hunches slightly over, “ For how long?”

“ Five minutes tops.” Then a shrug, “ Could have been longer. I didn’t hear anything. Were you looking for me?”

_ Yes _ . “ No.” He slowly stands up. “ No… I just wanted to get a better view of the sunset. I guess the workload from today wore me out.” He looks at Rey and ruffles the top of her hair. She swats him away again, complaining about him messing up her buns.

“ Keep it.” He adds later when they’re back in the transporter eating portions and drinking stale water tinged with faint taste of metal. “ On some planets those things can go for a lot of credits.”

Rey shoves a piece of bread in her mouth, “ Really?  _ Credits? _ ” She says between chews.

“ I’ve heard from off worlders that look for relics of the war. The cleaner the relic the more its worth.”

Rey glances at the helmet as Ben continues to make idle conversation and imagines she’s flying away in an old X-Wing… far,  _ far _ away from Jakku. Ben talks to distract himself from the nagging feeling growing from deep within.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man, guyyysss <3 thanks so much for the bookmarks and kudos. i really appreciate everyone's positive responses to this story <3 thank you so much!


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey knows that he lies to protect her

 

Ben was caring. He was loving. He was devoted.

Those were the three things Rey would say if someone was to ask her to describe Ben. In the years spent in his care, she had not felt unwanted or abandoned. He was always there, always making sure that she had something to drink or something to eat. If they were running low on portions, he would sacrifice his own to make sure that she would not go hungry. If there was only enough water for one person that night, he would give her the rest until morning. 

He made sure that she was always safe and secure from whatever dangers Jakku had lurking amongst the sand dunes. Ben may not have been the people that left her abandoned on Jakku -- her family -- but that didn’t matter now. To the young Rey, Ben was her family now. 

Ben was also sad. Detached. Distant. 

These were rare moments. Moments that Ben tried to hide from Rey; the moments spent in his dreams where he would cry in his sleep or yell out for a father who he could not recognize or a mother he could not name. Times where he would sit in that old, beat up cockpit chair and stare off into the distance detached from the world, as if he’s trapped in another place and only she could bring him back from whatever nightmare he’s visiting. Times where he would lift his hand up, as he sat on top of a sand dune, and see if he could move something with the Force; nothing would change and Rey would not both to ask as he comes back down.

“ How’s your speeder coming along?” He would ask as she works on her own speeder. She would look up at him, covered in grease and grime, and notice the sadness in his eyes. The way his smiles never quite reached them. The disappointment in realizing that whatever dreams haunted him were never a reality. 

“ Good.” She would reply, “ A few more days and I’ll be able to go deeper in the graveyards to find more good stuff.” 

He’d pat her on the head, ruffling her hair like he’d always would, and step back into their home leaving her to her project and with a sadness in her own heart.

It’s when Rey is at Niima Outpost, cleaning parts with calloused fingers along side an old woman, that she learns about Ben. It’s not much information -- it’s not his life story -- but it gives the young teenager a better understanding of the young man.

“ They left him here,” The woman mumbles as she scrubs a part clean. Her skin is wrinkled and skin so tan it looks like leather. “ They had to.”

Rey looks at the part in her hand, “ Why?”

“ I don’t know.” The old woman tosses the cleaned part into pile and grabs another part from a different one. It’s almost like she’s a droid, running on one simple program. “ But they did it to protect him.”

Rey looks up, across the outpost at the starships that needed repair, and sees Ben talking to a smuggler. His working goggles are pulled up, resting on top of his head, and his robes are stained with grease and dirt, the sleeves rolled up exposing strong tanned arms to Jakku’s brutal sun. She can’t help but imagine him somewhere else, probably a senator at the New Republic; fair skinned, dressed in expensive robes and wearing fancy headpieces as he debated important issues on behalf of his people. 

He was meant for something greater than this.

When she goes to barter with Unkar Plutt with her findings, he surprisingly shows her a sign of mercy.

“ A storm is coming, girl.” He drawls as he ungraciously slams four full portions onto the counter. “ A dead scavenger is no use to me.”

Rey takes the portions wordlessly. She quickly leaves, shoving the portions into her robes. Rey grips onto the leather sling of her staff, the edging fear to quickly make it to her speeder safely. Unkar Plutt was never discreet when he paid scavengers in large amounts because he knew that the others would attempt to steal those portions for themselves. The kill or be killed mentality amongst Plutt’s scavengers was amusing to the outpost boss. Free entertainment for an otherwise bleak existence.

There were many occasions the young scavenger witnessed of individuals being attacked over two portions, left for dead in the hot sands. No one ever attempted her life but Rey wasn’t too sure if that would always be the case as she gets older, no longer a little girl but an equal worth the fight for survival.

Ben is sitting on his speeder when Rey joins him. He always seemed larger than life next to her yet never entirely comfortable with his own body. He was tall, large, and lanky -- always carried himself with uncertainty. Self conscious. To her, he was her own personal guard; a jedi knight who would protect the princess. The stories he would read to her as a child when should just spend all day inside the starships Ben worked on.

If someone were to ask her if she ever felt safe on Jakku, Rey would reply that Ben made her feel safe. 

She wondered if he felt the same.

She reaches for his hand. She places four portions into his much larger palm.

“ A storm is coming.” Rey merely says. Ben takes one and gives her back the rest. She reluctantly takes the portions and slips them inside her robe.

“ I’ve seen that ship before,” Ben begins, rolling the portion between his fingers like a washer when he’s bored. “ Or something like it.”

Rey looks at the ship in question. It’s a large freighter covered with tarp. Based on the design, Rey could only surmise that it was a Correllian YT-1300 -- or at least a variant of it. 

“ Maybe you repaired one once?” 

Ben laughs, pocketing the portion. 

“ Ships like that don’t come to Jakku. That one has been here as long as I have.” His smile falls from his features, his voice becomes distant, “ I’ve seen it before--before I came here.”

“ I think Unkar stole it from someone. I doubt you’ve seen it before unless you used to hang out with smugglers and rift-rafts. Heard it was the property of a smuggler.” Rey jumps onto the speeder. She pokes at Ben’s head with the tip of her booted foot. “ Come on, let’s go home. I’ll drive.”

Ben looks up at her and shakes his head before getting onto the speeder, sitting behind the smaller girl. It’s an awkward position (Rey’s frame is obviously shorter) and when she leans forward to grab the handlebars of the speeder, she nearly looks like she is disappearing within. He holds onto the back of the seat and taps her shoulder.

Rey looks over her shoulder and with a grin, pushes her goggles down and over her eyes. Ben does the same. She starts the speeder and it takes off into the desert.

 

**

 

The Breath of R’iia, or  _ X’usR’iia _ as the native Teedos had named it, raged hard the following morning. It wasn’t the worst of storms Rey had experienced but it was brutal none the less. The winds howled against the durasteel walls of the transporter they called home. Chains that anchored the speeders to the ship rattled against the ship sounding like loud shots ricocheting into the wind.

The first time Rey had experienced the  _ X’usR’iia _ , she was frightened and hiding underneath the flimsy sheets that made up her bed. Ben had comforted the seven year old with distractions -- stories that he told of adventures from years beyond their own. Princesses and jedis, fighter pilots and storm troopers -- enough stories to keep her mind off of what was going outside and whisk her far away. When she had asked where he had heard the stories, he would go silent and disappear within himself mumbling a simple answer,  _ I don’t remember _ .

Now, the storms were more or less a test of survival. Those who did not understand or fear the storms did not survive. Those who did managed to live another day. This still did not stop Rey from wrapping herself in a blanket and hum a song Ben had once sung to her when she was seven years younger with a small smile as Ben sung along softly with lyrics he couldn’t remember how he come to learn them.

“ Do you miss them?” Rey asks, when they’re lying on their backs staring up at the durasteel ceiling, trying to make out the corroded wiring and rust in the darkness of the night. Rey has most of the blankets while Ben only has one.  He shifts to get more comfortable.

“ Miss who?” Ben asks. Rey takes a layer of sheets off of her and tosses it over to the mechanic. He catches it. 

“ … Your family?”

Ben sighs, adjusting the sheet on to his oversized frame. It barely covers him.

“ I don’t have a family,” He lifts a hand up as if he was reaching for the stars. 

“ I know this might sound…” Rey searches for a word, “ … Weird? But… When you sleep… I hear you.” She pauses, and then, “You talk in your sleep.”

Ben doesn’t respond, but his fingers dance in the air above like he’s trying to pull at tendrils in the air. Something that, deep within, he knew was calling to him.

“ You… call for your mother… and… and… You cry. You always cry.” 

Ben hand falls to his side. With a sigh, he says,  “ I don’t have a family, Rey.”

He rolls over onto his side, away from Rey. She crosses her arms over her chest and closes her eyes. For a moment she tries to remember a past with a family but nothing comes to mind. There’s no family, no home, no uncles named Chewie or Luke, or a father who made her cry with loneliness so deep she couldn’t even comprehend how alone he could have been. 

It was empty, bleak -- nameless. 

Something bubbles within her chest, as if someone had dropped a weight on her heart. There’s a lump in her throat and she finds it hard to swallow. A sob hitches in her throat but she covers her mouth in an attempt to muffle it. It’s futile as hot tears begin to roll down her sandy cheeks. The loud winds from outside do nothing to mask her sobs.

Ben sits up and looks over at Rey, who’s wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hands. 

“ Rey…?”

“ It-it’s nothing. I’m fine.” She sits up and pushes the blankets off of her. “ I’m okay.”

Ben reaches over and wraps his arms around her smaller frame. He pulls her close and rests his chin on top of her head. He hushes her sobs, trying to calm the girl down. Rey wiggles out of his embrace and chokes a laugh as she wipes her eyes.

“ I’m fine. I’m… I’m fine. It’s just that… I can’t remember them. I can’t remember my family and I don’t know  _ why _ .” She crosses her legs and runs a hand through her loose hair. “ I dream every night of nothing but Jakku. Of sand dunes, of ships, of the bloody blobfish and yet I can’t even dream of my own  _ parents _ .”

Rey pulls her knees up and rests her head on top. She wraps her arms around her legs, hugging herself. There’s a silence that fills the small space. It’s almost as deafening as standing outside in the middle of the  _ X’usR’iia _ , then --

“ I don’t remember them.” His deep voice breaks the silence. It’s matter-of-fact, straight to the point. “ I don’t remember what they look like. What they smell like. What they wore.”

Rey turns her head to look at Ben. She can’t really see him in the dark but she could imagine his expression. Distant, detached,  _ sad _ . 

Always sad.

“ I try to. I… I try to remember the dreams. Their faces. I want to remember their names but I can’t. I wake up and they’re gone. Like they never existed. There this wall and no matter how many times I try to climb over it, I fall. I keep falling until I’m back in reality.” 

Rey knows their names. Mother. Father. Luke. Chewie. Sometimes he cries them out, sometimes he laughs, sometimes he says them endearingly.

Ben pinches the bridge of his nose, “  _ Back  _ to _ Jakku _ .” 

He spits the words out like a curse. Then again, for them, Jakku is a curse.

“ But, despite  _ that _ , I realized that I don’t need to remember.” He looks over at Rey, “ I have you. You’re my family, Rey… and… I’m your family.”

He leans over and wraps his arms around her again. 

“ We have each other.” He whispers into her hair. “ We are a family.”

Rey nods. He’s trying to comfort her, placate her,  _ protect  _ her.

But she knows that he’s lying. He lies to protect her; he gives her false truths in order to keep her from recognizing what horrors the universe had for her. But she’s thirteen, almost going on fourteen, and she’s seen her fair share of horrors. Death, sickness, murders, suicides… 

She has seen all that Jakku has to offer. She knows Ben can’t protect her.

It’s a couple of hours later when they’re lying down. Ben is asleep but Rey is still staring up at the ceiling, the winds of  _ X’usR’iia _ louder and more vicious than before. She wonders if they’ll be buried alive this time, forever lost to the deserts of Jakku until the next storms unearth them for scavengers to pick from. Her thoughts keep her awake. Left to listen to the person next to her fall into a dreams of a life he’ll wake up and not remember.

“ … Don’t leave me here…” He whispers in his sleep, choking back a sob. It’s barely audible to her, his voice muffled by the blankets he clutches in his hands. 

Rey sits up and crawls over to Ben. She looks down at him, at his face, and notices the trail of silent tears staining his cheeks. Hesitantly she wipes them away and reaches for his hand, covering it with her own.

She dreams of an ocean. When she does dream, that is. 

And when she closes her eyes, that’s what she dreams of. An ocean with an island. Usually she’s there, alone, with no one to speak to. It’s always the wide and open blue sea with the jagged rocks that made up the islands scattered about. She would always sit in a clearing, left to her thoughts, watching the sun rise in the distance.

But this time, she looks up and he’s there next to her. Rey doesn’t know how and neither does he. He simply sits down next to her and looks off into the distance -- towards the sunrise. They don’t speak. They just sit in each other’s company, enjoying the tranquility offered by a place they’ve never been before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to jump into Rey's mind a bit here with this chapter. She's much harder for me to write than Ben. I've also been binge watching Adam Driver's filmography which is probably influencing my interpretation of Ben... I want to not do that but it is easier to write Ben as if Driver was to perform him? I have no idea. But his characters seem to follow a distinct archetype. Ah, I'm rambling now lol.
> 
> I also hope I don't make Ben sound like a creeper. Their relationship is totally platonic as of this chapter. He looks at her as a sibling and nothing more. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your kind comments and kudos! The response has really boosted and encouraged me to continue this little story. I really appreciate everyone for reading and thank you so much for taking the time out to comment!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unkar has seen that look before in the past.

Unkar Plutt is not a dumb creature. Despite his outward appearance and choice in clothing that may have given the impression of someone who was a bumbling idiot (why would that thing be living in a desert planet? Isn’t his planet mostly water?), the Croulete was far from one. He was very much aware of everything that went on at his outpost. He knew who lived in the immediate area of his outpost, how many that worked under him, his entire stockpile of junk parts and ships, and average earning per hour he made selling those junk parts to stranded spacers.

He knew of the prostitutes that worked around the tents in the back and their pimps that attracted the spacers to their temptatious lures. He also knew when one would try to run out on a bill because is men kept order in the outpost, rounding up the scumbag and beating the credits out of them — retaining their ten percent cut for the enforcement. 

It made Unkar good money. Why would he want to live on a planet where he was nothing, and would eventually amount to nothing, when he was the king of his own outpost in the far outreaches of the galaxy. He had everything a spacer could want. Spare parts, repairs, food, water, and even some temporary companionship. Whatever you wanted, Unkar had it.

In his years running the outpost, the Croulete had seen so many lifeforms come and go that he could easily read them. He could read the signs; the facial expressions and slight body movements. He knew when someone was lying and when someone told the truth. He knew they called him a “Blobfish”. He knew that someone made side deals. He also knew how to squash those treacherous employees of his. A simple command and the scum would simply disappear in an unfortunate accident.

But he also knew the kinder, sweeter signs of those that traversed his outpost. He could recognize the bashful look on a nineteen year old girl’s face and know immediately that its love. Lust is the look a spacer gave a Twi’lek prostitute. This wasn’t lust — giggles and distant looks from afar topped with small, unnoticed smiles was love.

The scavenger Rey was in love with the mechanic Ben.

This wasn’t the first time he had seen his servants fall in love. Years ago, one of his scavengers ran off with a space pirate and a crate of stolen portions. A spacer kept visiting a prostitute and offered to buy her freedom in order to marry her (which, of course, he allowed for a nice, healthy commission). Creatures fell in love — it was a fact of life. They fall in love, they procreate, and the cycle continues in the next generation. So on and so on.

But this particular situation was something that left the Croulete feeling a slight dread in the pit of his stomach. The two were not his normal type of servants. The boy had a unique past and the girl, well, there had to been something wrong with her for the parents to just give her away without much a word. Why he ended up with two strange humans with questionable pasts was a bit beyond his reasoning abilities, but whatever it was, all it did was make him watch the girl warily as he worried about the two becoming more than two desert rats living off of his generosity. 

From the comfort of his tented office, Unkar looks at the Correllian YT-1300 sitting on the outskirts of his outpost. The large freighter had layers of sand all over it, making it look as abandoned as the ships out in the  _ Graveyard _ . The tarp that covered it is weighed down by sand and rocks, hiding the truth behind that freighter. It was a symbol, a reminder, of a price he took in exchange for a certain child. Who wants credits when he could demand the galaxy’s most infamous ship as collateral instead? 

At first the ship was like a trophy piece. He, Unkar Plutt, the owner of a small junkyard outpost on a remote planet, managed to get his hands on the Millenium Falcon. He, a Croulette that many thought was a fool to leave his water planet for a desert, only to swell up and live a life of pain, got his fat grubby hands on a piece of galactic history. But years go by and situations change. Rumors circle and whispers of rebellions and dark side users flitted through the tents of Niima Outpost like kisses of death. 

The Correllian YT-1300 freighter looks more and more like a physical embodiment of a curse than a prized possession. As his eyes find the boy, no, man associated with it working in the repair yard, Unkar finds it hard to suppress the bubbling dread at the pit of his stomach. Sooner or later, something was going to happen. He was sure of it.

But until that day came, all he had to currently worry about was a girl, on the cusp of womanhood, falling in love with a boy -- who was now a man -- with a dark and worrisome past. The blood that ran through his veins only represented the potential possibilities of what could go wrong if anything were to happen. Unkar was no fool to the story. The Sith Lord who destroyed a galaxy because of losing the woman he loved. He needed to prevent anything of the sort from happening.

The Millennium Falcon did not come without a price, after all. Things like that never do.

“ Get the boy. Bring him here. I need to speak with him.” Unkar eventually orders a subordinate from the back tent, surrounded by crates and crates of aged portions. The scrawny alien covered head to toe in dark robes and a mask, immediately jumps at the order and scurries out to the repair yard.

The heat on Jakku was unusually hotter than normal today and Unkar was swelling up worse than his usual. His biology simply was not equipped to handle the heat and in self healing mechanism, his body retained water to almost painful degrees at times. There will be no portions handed out today. His servants and scavengers would simply have to wait another day. But the issue with the two humans, that unfortunately needed to be handled right at that very moment.

Ben enters the tent too small for his impressively intimidating frame. Unkar had not noticed it before, too busy worrying about making sure his outpost ran smoothly than concerning himself with the human stage of development called puberty. But, when he is face to face with the once scrawny child, now a impressively well defined man, Unkar has no choice but to notice. It almost makes him consider employing more bodyguards to protect him from this unfortunate burden he had daunted himself with. 

“ You said you needed to speak with me?” Ben asks as he wipes his hands clean on a dirty rag. 

“ Yes,” Unkar drawls as he shifts in his chair. His leg has gone numb, the pressure from the swelling is painful, but he will not let this kid figure him out. “ The girl. How is she these days?”

Ben blinks at the question. Unkar had not asked him about Rey in months, if not years. He left them to their own devices once the girl was able to scavenge the  _ Graveyard _ on her own without his help. Honestly, he does not know how to answer the question and it takes him a few seconds to process it.

“ She’s fine. Pretty capable of handling herself out there in the desert. She’s learned how to defend herself.” He pauses as he tries to think of more to say, “ That’s it, really.”

Unkar makes a noise from the back of his throat as he shifts in his chair again. He looks at the unmarked crates of portions around him then at Ben, “ What do you think of the girl?”

“ I don’t understand.”

He honestly does not understand the question. Of course he would not understand the question. The boy has only been surrounded by spacers most of his life. If he’s ever ventured to the back tents of Niima, he wouldn’t have gotten far. A person needs  _ credits _ and that is something the boy does not have. Unkar leans back in his chair and waves a fat, swollen hand in front of his face.

“ Nevermind, boy.” 

“ I actually have a repair to finish. I promised the guy I would have his ship done by sundown and I’m currently having problems installing the capacitor which is delaying that repair.”

Unkar frowns, “ If he has any problems he will take it up with me. I own you, boy. I decide whether you can leave or stay.”

“ My apologizes.”

“ I think it's time for you to let the girl go,” A pause, “ On her own.”

Ben feels something -- his heart? -- drop to the pit of his stomach. That was not something he expected Unkar to tell him. What difference did it matter if Rey stayed with him or not. It was not as if Rey could not do her job. In fact, she would wake earlier than him in the morning and return late in the evening, well after he had came home. They barely were in each other lives as is. Why was Unkar suddenly telling him to kick the girl out into the desert on her own?

For some reason, Ben did not want to do that. 

“ W-why, if I may ask?” Ben swallows but his throat is dry and it hurts. 

“ You’re not her father. You can’t protect the girl forever. She needs to be on her own.”

He never thought of himself to be her father. The association never really crossed his mind. How could he have been a father when he, himself, did not know who his own father was. He dreams of a man but he can never figure out who he is and what significance he was to him. They weren’t related so she wasn’t a sister to him. He never considered her as someone close. If anything, Rey was his friend. His  _ only _ friend on that junkyard of a planet.

The  _ only  _ soul whom he has ever been able to connect with.

Separating himself from her, after all these years, was something he could not easily do. It was almost cruel of what Unkar was asking him to do.

And as Unkar watches the boy before him process the order he had given him, it was there that the Croulete realized that the mechanic had feelings for the scavenger. How deep those feelings ran, he had no idea, but it wouldn’t be much longer before those sparks would ignite into a blaze of emotions. And if he knew anything about that hocus pocus called the Force, emotions was one of the precursors to bad things happening. 

Ben was a scavenger at heart. Unkar knew this. He raised him, watched him grow, and taught him what he needed to know to survive on Jakku. The mechanic may have had feelings for the girl but there wasn’t a bribe on that sand covered dust bucket of a planet that would not change his mind in an instant. Unkar  _ knew _ Ben just like he had known his father. Deep down inside, they were nothing but scoundrels trying to climb to the top.

“ I will give you this entire crate of portions. There’s at least two months of portions here.”

“ What?”

That was nearly double the amount he earned. He wouldn’t have to worry about making backroom deals to survive with that amount of portions. Ben looks at the crate beneath the Croulete’s meaty, swollen arm. Two month supply of portions was almost as if he was giving him a paid vacation and all he had to do was just let the girl go. 

Let Rey go.

“ I’ll even give you a few credits to spend at the brothel.” Unkar sits up in his chair, a smirk on his otherwise swollen face. “ Let you experience what it's like to be a man. I hear a Twi’lek is quite flexible.”

A night with a prostitute and two months of portions. Unkar was being unusually generous to convince Ben to get rid of Rey. While he could have cared less for the prostitute (what sense did it make for a slave to take pleasure with another slave?), the portions was definitely tempting. If Unkar was giving him credits to be used at the brothel then perhaps he could spend those on actual food from a traveler stopping on Jakku for a pit stop. 

It was only two months.

Two months versus a potential life time.

“ Look at this a business deal. A very good one, I might add, which is entirely to your benefit, boy. So how about it? It won’t take much.” Unkar voice seeps with false praise and admiration. He is trying to win Ben over with sweet pleasantries, “ Besides, I am certain you were much younger when you left on your own and as you said, the girl can pretty much take care of herself.”

Ben takes a slow and steady breath as he looks at the crate, then, “ I can’t. She’s not ready.”

That was not something that Unkar Plutt wanted to hear. No one ever denied his orders and to say he was actually being  _ nice _ by offering him credits and portions. Unkar knew the boy was cursed -- that was the entire reason why he ended up on that Godforsaken planet in the first place. But he was not going to allow his outpost to be victim to the curse coming into fruition if the two rats were ever to fall in love. He did not want the grandson of Darth Vader to finally ‘awaken’.

With a huff, the Croulete stands up from his chair and stalks over to Ben, “  _ You _ will get rid of the girl and never speak to her again. Every day you spend with the girl is another day the  _ both  _ of you don’t eat. I will keep you from the repair yards so you can never work a side deal to circumvent me, either. I  _ know _ you, boy.”

“ Why do you suddenly care. It’s been ten years, so why now?” Ben’s jaw moves in nervous tick. This could backfire -- he knows this could backfire for the both of them. 

“ They are reasons you shouldn’t concern yourself with, boy.” Unkar snarls, “ Just get rid of her. Now go.”

Ben’s fingers curl into fists at his side but he never goes for the punch. Instead, he turns around and stalks out of the tent leaving the Croulete behind to watch him kick a jug of water over and knock over a stack of pottery. People moved out of the mechanic’s way as he destroyed anything that was in his immediate path, an anger consuming him that Unkar had never seen before. 

But this was good. This needed to happen. Let the boy be angry now, break a few things, and get it out of his system. He’ll get over her just like how everyone else at Niima Outpost survived -- no emotional connections, no trust, just survival. Emotions got people into trouble and sometimes it even got people killed.

Unkar was not going to let that happen as long as he ran Niima Outpost.

A couple of days later, as Rey delivers her salvaged parts, Unkar slides over five portions for something that was only worth one. 

“ For your troubles,” He gruffs as the girl hesitantly slides the nutritional packs into her bag. “ Have you found a place?”

She glares at him, “ Yes.”

“ Good.”

As Rey walks away, Unkar watches her, ignoring the short scavenger before him slamming parts on top of his counter. Staff in hand, she slowly walks back to her speeder -- the one that Ben had helped her build out of salvaged parts. She fastens her bag and staff to the speeder with an air of teenaged frustration that Unkar had seen before on many others in the past. But what he has never seen is the softening of her features and the turn to watch a black haired mechanic work across the outpost in the repair yard. 

Rey stands next to her speeder, hand against the red dinged up surface, and waits for the boy -- no, man -- to look back at her. As if words unsaid were being spoken between them, Ben looks up at her direction. They stare at each other, as if having an unspoken conversation between each other, before he turns away. Rey glances in the direction of Unkar and he finally acknowledges the bemused scavenger before him.

“ One quarter portion.” Unkar drawls as he hears the sound of Rey’s speeder rev up and speed out of town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ohohoho. Who's back at it again to finally finish this fanfic. :V
> 
> Not beta'd.
> 
> Thanks for reading this angst fest and kudos/comments make a girl happy! <3


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A sweet, yet cold comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> story takes a dark turn, kids. not beta'd, as usual.

Rey knows of the Force. Everyone knew of the Force. It was this  _ thing _ that some special people had that made them lift rocks and swing laser swords around. There was a light side and a dark side and years ago there was a war that culminated to a face off between a father and son — dark and light — Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. 

Legendary events that happened decades before she was even born. Stories so fantastical Rey doubted they were even true. If the Force truly existed, why did people live like they did on planets like Jakku? Where were the heroes of the Force to liberate the impoverished from their hell? It seemed like a bunch of lies — stories made up to give foolish children unrealistic hope. 

Ben would tell Rey the stories of the fabled Force users when she was a child. He always had an unusual fascination with the idea of the Force. Always reaching out and trying to grab at something that was never there. They would be lying on their backs on the cool, night sand looking up at the stars above, and he would extend his hand out to the sky and try to grab something.

She would ask him what he’s reaching for. He would respond with nothing.

The first time it happens — the first time she experiences the Force — was the first week after she was forced to leave Ben and live on her own. It was a mistake. A miscalculation in the distance between the platform she was standing on and the gap between in the old dreadnought. One jump across, a missed landing, and she was tumbling down to the hard, sandy earth below. Maybe it was the fear of dying or perhaps it was the emotions running through her mind as her body fell several stories — the sadness, the shock, the longing, the fear. 

She expected to hit the ground.

She didn’t.

In fact, she did not feel anything. She gasped for as as the wind was knocked out of her as the Force commanded itself to prevent her body from coming to a horrible end. Her eyes were wide with shock, as she didn’t realize what was happening at that very moment. What was happening? Why didn’t she hit the ground yet? The scavenger slowly reached beneath her with a trembling hand to come in contact with nothing but the air between her floating body and the ground below.

What was going on? 

It doesn’t make any sense. None of it makes sense. The shock of the fall must had caused her to lose track of time — Rey can not remember how she ends up on her back on the hard sandy floor. She must have floated or something must have happened. None of it mattered as she laid on her back for hours, staring up at the twisted durasteel of the decayed dreadnought shell. The only thing she could think of was that there was no way someone like her could have survived that fall.

Was it all just a dream - did she just pass out from heat exhaustion and dreamt it all up? 

As the light from Jakku’s hot sun began to fade away, that’s when Rey finally gets up. 

She returned to her AT-AT, her new home, with too many questions on the tip of her tongue and no one to ask them too. It was that moment that Rey realized that she was finally  _ alone _ . 

Alone with no one to turn to. To speak to. To laugh with.

Rey did not have Ben.

He told her she had to live on her own without him. The girl needed to learn how to survive without expecting him to come and save her whenever things got bad. And when she asked why, all he could say was that she needed to go. She  _ had _ to go.

But it’s hard to hide the truth when your running off of emotions. It’s difficult to contain one’s resolve when the girl he’s known all his life is kneeling on the dirty floor, hunched over in tears and whys tumbling off her tongue like drops of water from a faucet. 

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to tell her it’s okay. He could lie and tell her it’s temporary. He could wipe her tears away with his dirtied hands. And maybe — just maybe —

Nothing happened. Except for a truth.

— Unkar Plutt.

Ben was kilometers away. Rey did not have the courage to travel Jakku at night and she knew Unkar had eyes watching her to make sure the two of them stayed apart.

So she slept, alone, that night and dreamed of the island and the ocean.

It’s several months later in the desert when she experiences it again. Several months of living alone in the desert with no one to talk to. No meals to share with. No company to share space with. Just her, her thoughts, and the etched markings on a durasteel surface of the days since Unkar Plutt forced her out of Ben’s life. 

Ninety-six days.

Two scavengers ambush the young woman. It’s nothing personal, they tell her, they just want her bag of scavenged goods and speeder. There’s a struggle — one large and burly man restrains her from behind as the short and skinny scavenger takes her bag and rummages through her speeder.

She kicks and screams but it’s not enough. And maybe this is how it’s going to end — in the middle of the  _ Graveyard  _ with no one to worry or care about where she is at. Maybe Ben will care… but she hasn’t seen him in weeks and dreams aren’t the same as the physical comfort of him nearby.

It’s hard to breathe. His fat, sweaty forearm is pressed against her throat and the more she struggles the harder he squeezes. 

“ Stop screaming, rat!”

Rat. Is that what she will ever be? Nothing more than Plutt’s rat?

Suddenly, it’s so hard to breathe.

_ A poor thing such as you does not deserve to die like a rat. _

The voice in the back of her mind is smooth — willow like — almost teasing. Rey can’t tell if the voice is real or not. Is she hearing things because she is losing consciousness?

_ No, my dear. I am here to help you. You have a power — unimaginable power… _

She does not have a power. She feels weak.

_ Focus on your anger. Focus on your fear. Feel it course through you and command it to your will. _

It’s so hard to think… but— 

_ Yes. That’s right, my child. Eliminate your threat. Bend him to your will. _

The arm goes lax against her throat. Rey feels the man behind her slump backwards as he grabs his neck. She can hear him struggle to breathe and maybe if she turns around and holds her hand out she can make him fall to his knees and regret what he has done to her.

“ What the hell — what the hell are you do—!!”

The other one reaches for his neck.

_ Yes. I can feel your power, child. Strike them down. Punish them for what they’ve done! _

It’s so odd how comforting it is to finally hear someone after so many months of solitude. And even with this voice only being in her head, it’s like she can feel this presence guide her body as she curls her fingers into fists and chokes the two thieves to death. She hears their sputtering and gurgles for air but they’re far off into the distant reaches of her mind because she can only focus on the growing presence in her mind. A voice.

This voice — the calming baritone of this strange presence in her mind — it’s like they’re right next to her. She can hear them clearly. Rey can  _ feel _ them around her. She can feel the briefest caresses of something lifelike against her cheek — like a parent comforting a child after experiencing something traumatic. The swell of approval as she takes control of this power, of this  _ Force _ , and bends it to her will.

_ You have done well, my child. _

They fall lifelessly face forward into the burning sands of Jakku.

It’s surprising how Rey doesn’t react to the dead bodies lying at her feet. Her throat hurts and it’s hard to breathe, but she picks up her staff off the ground and slowly walks to her speeder. She looks at the small, scrawny thief, picks up her bag of scavenged parts, and secures both the bag and staff to her speeder.

And as Rey gets on her speeder and travels back to Niima Outpost, the presence in her mind doesn’t leave her. It takes root, like a weed, spreading itself throughout her mind. It feels strange and foreign, and maybe it’s because she yearns for companionship but she welcomes it. She welcomes its cold, dark coils wrapping itself around her body. She welcomes the whispers of approval.

Finally, she isn’t alone again.

“ Rey.”

She hears his voice — Ben’s voice — as she cleans her findings under the tent at Niima Outpost. The water is dirty, almost mud at this point, and no matter how many times she scrubs the compressor, it never is clean. She scrubs harder and ignores the voice — his voice — Ben’s voice. Now he shows up, after the deed has been done.

After she had to kill two men in the desert in a way that she even doubts was real.

“ Rey,” He says again. Scrub harder — it needs to shine in order to get more portions. “ Rey, come here.  _ Please _ .”

Hands stop moving and she looks over her shoulder. Ben stands behind her, his head peeking from behind the tent and he motions for her to come to him. Her heart drops at the sight of him; she wants to curl into a ball and disappear because it should not hurt like this. Missing someone should feel like a knife being lodged in her chest — she shouldn’t feel anything at all.

But she does and her body betrays her as she quickly tosses her parts back in the bag and gets up to go to Ben. He grabs her arm when she’s close to him and pulls her away, out of the tent. He quickly tries to find an empty tent away from Plutt’s eyes and ears, disappearing in one closer to the repair yard, obscured by the queue of ships needing repair.

Rey drops her bag to the ground once Ben lets her go. They stand there, barely a meter apart. The mechanic looks at the scavenger with worry etched all over his features.

“ I—I don’t know what… is going on but I  _ felt _ you were in danger.” He says as he looks at her body for any injuries. “ Did something happen?”

Rey shakes her head, “ No. Nothing happened.”

“ You’re lying.”

“ I am not lying.”

Ben takes a step closer. He lifts his right hand up and reaches for the red mark against her throat. Rey stiffens as she feels his rough, calloused fingers brush against the sensitive skin.

“ You’re lying…” He releases a shaky breath as his finger dip to the hollow at her throat before moving slowly to her exposed shoulder. “ I  _ felt _ your fear, Rey. I— I don’t know how but I did. You were… struggling. You were in pain….”

Rey shudders involuntarily at the ghostlike touch of his fingers against her skin. She wants to press further into his touch. She wants to have his fingers curl around her waist and pull her flush against his sturdy frame. She wants burrow into his warmth. 

But he doesn’t pull her close. He doesn’t let her feel what she wants from him. His fingers fall from her shoulder, down her arm, and back to his side. It’s like he’s holding back; like he’s afraid of taking that step forward for fear of what lies on the other side.

Rey sucks in a sharp breath despite the heavy rise and fall of her chest and the electric shocks running through her body. She absolutely hates the feeling. She hates the way Ben makes her feel.

“ I handled it.” The scavenger remembers the way their bodies fell. She remembers feeling them struggle on their last and final breath. “ You’re just imagining things. There’s no way that you can  _ feel _ those things, Ben.”

She says the words as if she’s trying to convince herself to be true, but there’s a lingering presence in the back of her mind that tells her otherwise. It makes her close her eyes for the briefest moment and exhale as she falls into it -- allows it to justify the lives she took.

_ It was survival, my child. Survival. Do not have shame in doing what you must in order to survive. _

That’s right. Rey did it to survive. That’s all it was -- an act of survival. 

He cards his fingers through his sweat laden hair with a sigh. He doesn’t know what’s going on — ever since Plutt forced the girl away from him the pull to her had been growing stronger and stronger. The dreams of the island and the ocean. The moments where he can feel her volatile emotions — as if something out there is trying to get his attention to her — had began to increase in frequency.

Maybe he’s finally cracked under pressure. 

Or maybe it’s something else.

“ We can’t be seen together, Ben. If we get caught we’ll starve for who knows how long.” She pulls her lower lip between her teeth and nibbles on it nervously, “ I have to go.”

Ben doesn’t want to let her go. It’s been too long and he just needs to see her again. Hear her voice and see her smile again. He wants to see his little happy scavenger be  _ happy _ . And maybe this won’t be enough but he grabs her arm and pulls her into him. He weaves his large fingers into her hair and holds her tight against his body.

“ I am here, Rey. I won’t ever let you go.”

It happens so fast she can’t even hear him. Rey chokes back a sob as she burrows her face into his chest and breathes him in.  _ Finally  _ she in his arms and she feels grounded again. Whole. 

“ I... miss you so much…” She says breathlessly into the coarse cotton of his beige robes.

“ Me too,” He says into the crown of her head, “ Me too.”

A chaste kiss against her temple, a shiver throughout her body, and she’s back at arm’s length again. 

Rey does not know why he kissed her. It was a chaste one -- a brief press press of lips against her skin -- but it sends shockwaves through her core. She wants more. She wants him to hold her like the lovers she’s seen around the outpost all her life. She wants him to kiss her like a lover. But she’s asking for too much and Rey reluctantly understands this.

She’s not… They’re not… 

It just can never be.

And Ben wants to call her sweetheart -- something he remembers hearing as a child -- a word full of affection and love: It’s okay, sweetheart. I got you, sweetheart. You’ll never be alone.

He wants to whisper those words against every bruise and scar against her body. He wants to make every ounce of pain that she carries disappear with each touch and kiss. But he’s learned that on Jakku, what you want is never something that you can have. Everything comes with a price. 

So, he looks at her one last time, before he leaves her in the tent. 

Alone, again. 

_ Patience, child.  _

That voice keeps her from falling to her knees. She fights back the tears and wipes her eyes dry with the heel of her dirtied hands. 

_ You have something that many do not have. A skill so powerful you can make even the greatest man fall to their knees before you and beg for mercy. You are gifted with the Force. _

Something. She has  _ something _ . She has… the Force.

_ Let me teach you the ways of the Force, child. There is no pain with the Force. You will never be alone again. _

The voice in her mind is as thick as molasses and as sweet as honey. She closes her eyes and allows herself to fall into it’s dark, cold comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was always planned in my story notes and it had to happen! but now this story has officially reached it's core plot. i have roughly five more chapters planned, but it could be longer. i've bumped up the rating on the story as well to reflect on future themes that are definitely not teen rated.
> 
>  
> 
> [hit me up on tumblr!](http://shiiiera.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> thanks for reading, your kudos, and commenting!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unspoken words and unfortunate consequences

It’s late in the cold Jakku night when Ben hears a knock at the door of his twisted durasteel ship he called his home. It puts him at high alert -- visitors don’t travel at night and the Jakku night is unforgiving to anyone who dares to travel the sands without the blessings of the hot sun to cast a light. He slips out of his bed and grabs a wrench from his tool bag, slowly creeping to the door he has sealed shut. He presses his back flush against the old durasteel, next to the door, and closes his eyes. 

The knocking continues but for some unexplained reason Ben doesn’t feel threatened. It’s like something is singing to him -- some intuition he can not necessarily explain but he has felt before. There is no threat. There was never a threat. His body relaxes and can feel  _ her _ on the other side. 

He can feel Rey. 

These moments have been increasing in frequency over the last few months. The times where he’s suddenly experiencing flashes of sudden emotions that he can not explain. Most of them fear and anger but some of curiosity and awe. They are things he should not -- could not -- feel because they are not something he is experiencing. Why should he be afraid as he’s installing a part in a ship? Or why should he be at awe when he’s dragging a fuel line to a trader’s ship?

Then, there were the dreams. The few nights where he feels as if he’s sharing a dream. A dream with her -- Rey.

It’s as if something has connected them. Something that wants Rey to be a constant presence in the back of his mind.

“ Ben.” Rey says once the door opens. From what little light offered by Jakku’s full moons, Ben could see her flushed cheeks. Her hair was pulled up in a loose bun on the top of her head, not the usual three-bun style she always insisted on keeping it in as if it was something in her past that she refused to let go of. 

“ Why are you here? If Unkar Plutt finds out--”

Rey shakes her head, “ It’s late at night. He won’t find out a thing. I need to talk to you about something.”

Ben steps aside as Rey steps into his shelter. As he closes the door behind them, he can feel the yearning and sadness radiating off of her. It’s a melancholy deep within her heart that he doesn’t know what to do or say. He can’t even explain it. He watches as she looks around the small confined space that was once her home for over a decade as she runs her calloused fingers over the durasteel and various objects he -- they -- had collected over the years. She gathers the cloth that gave them privacy into her hand and sighs as she closes her eyes, fighting back the ebbing lump at the back of her throat. 

There’s a silence between them as Ben stands and watches her. He starts to notice little things about this girl that he had bestowed upon him by Unkar Plutt. One of them being that she was no longer a girl; she was a woman. A woman who was scorned. A woman who was hurt. A woman he should have protected.

He feels at fault. For everything.

“ I’m sorry.” The words tumble from his lips before he can take them back. Rey looks up at him and smiles sadly. It doesn’t appear that she understands why he’s apologizing and he doesn’t know if he should explain himself. 

So he doesn't. He just lets those two words hang in the air between them.

“ There’s been something happening to me,” Rey says slowly as her thumb rolls over the coarse fabric of the curtain. “ Something I can not explain.”

“ Is it something… at the outpost?” He swallows as he feels a silent rage bubbling at the pit of his stomach, “ Has Unkar been hurting you?”

“ No,” She says quietly and Ben relaxes. His shoulders fall, he hunches over, and he can breath again. Rey continues, unaware to the man next to her, “ The Blobfish is too focused on his credits to care about a little desert rat like myself. You know this. I know this.” She pauses, collecting herself, “ It’s… hard to explain… but there’s a voice in my head that is telling me to do things -- that I  _ can _ do things.”

Ben feels for the bulkhead behind him and leans against the durasteel wall, “ What… things?”

What was she talking about?

“ It tells me that… I am a slave to no one.” She grips the curtain. “ It tells me that I can defeat those that oppress me. That I have the power to take anything that I want.”

“ I don’t… are you sure you haven’t experienced some kind of heatstroke out there, Rey?” Ben licks his lips and cards his fingers through his hair. It’s now down to his shoulders and he should cut it, but he hasn’t had the motivation to do much of anything lately. Not since he was forced away from Rey.

Rey looks at Ben and shakes her head, he feels a spike in frustration from her but it quickly goes away as fast as it came. 

“ I can do things, Ben. I can do strange things that I wasn’t able to do before. I have  _ done _ things, too. Bad things. Things that I never thought I would do. But, the scariest part about all of this is that I--I don’t…  _ feel _ any remorse for it. I don’t feel angry at myself. I feel  _ vindicated _ .”

“ What did you do?”

He asks her slowly and softly. Ben doesn’t want to accuse her. He doesn’t want to make her feel guilty or afraid to be there. Whatever it is, he is sure that it was justifiable in some way. It was Jakku, after all. A planet filled with the worst of the worst outside the rule of the New Republic where slavery and prostitution was legal and deals that people could not refuse was an unspoken rule of life.

In some way, in the back of his mind, he knows about what she had done. In fact, he has always known about the incident in the desert. Two of Unkar Plutt’s hired muscle end up dead on the outskirts of the  _ Starship Graveyard _ , the very same day that he first experienced these unexplainable sensations of emotion from Rey? It was no coincidence. The question he wanted an answer to was how she had done it.

He just can’t ask her that question. He can’t bring himself to acknowledge that Rey was right -- something was happening. Something that he did not know how to protect her from.

“ I… Something had happened and it’s done. But the rush of  _ power _ from it all… it was…”

“ Come here.”

Ben holds his arms out and open and Rey quickly moves across the tight space, into his arms. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her face into the light grey sleeping tunic he’s wearing. He brings his arms around her smaller frame, holds her close to his body, and she breaths him in as he does this -- like someone who was breathing fresh air for the first time. Rey relaxes in his arms and he kisses top of her head.

Something hums around them -- it hums pleasantly -- like a soft rumble as they continue to embrace. Ben can sense it as the girl relaxes in his arms. He can’t explain what it is and he’s not sure if he knows what it is, but it calms him down as well. The violent emotions Rey was experiencing earlier were dampening, replaced by feels of happiness, gratitude and…

Ben closes his eyes and buries his face into the top of her head. He breathes her in and holds her tighter. 

“ I got you, sweetheart.” He says softly against her soft, brown hair. “ I’m never going to let you go.  _ Remember that _ .”

She nods. She nods so much that he pushes her away just to look at her face. He takes his left hand and wipes away the tears that gathered at the corners of her hazel eyes and she stops, as her arms unwrap themselves from his neck and hands trail down his chest and grab onto his tunic. She looks at her hands, unable to bring herself to look up at Ben. Afraid to see whatever pity he might have for her.

And in the back of her mind, that voice lingers. It tells her that compassion is going to lead her to more suffering. It tells her that these emotions she’s feeling is nothing more than a weakness that will allow her to be manipulated -- to be a slave for the rest of her life.

_ True power lies in the darkness. Your freedom is in power. You must destroy the light in order to free yourself! _

But she feels his calloused fingers at her chin, tilting her head up. She looks into those dark, brown eyes she has known all her life on Jakku. Those eyes filled with so much emotion it looks like a storm. And, maybe that’s what it is -- she’s caught in a storm and he’s the anchor that she needs to grab on to keep from blowing away into the unknown, dark places of her mind. She wants him to hold her down and keep her steadied.

Rey  _ needs _ him more than she could ever want. 

“ Ben, I--”

He kisses her. He kisses her as if tonight will be the last night they’ll ever have together. And, maybe that’s true. Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Jakku is a place with no future, where people live day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute. There are too many skeletons in the sand and too much suffering in the outposts to worry about the repercussions of  _ now _ .

The kiss catches her by surprise. She gasps and he presses further, deepening the kiss and tasting her for the first time. It’s a crude kiss full of much inexperience and fumbling. Neither know what to do; teeth clink against each other, lips are nipped, and either don’t know whether to press against the wall or fall to the dirtied floor below. 

None of it matters because that  _ thing _ sings against his ears. Whatever it is -- it hums with a brillance that’s nearly blinding as Rey moans against his mouth and pushes against him. There’s a feverish need behind their actions as they break apart for air. Ben feels as if his body is on fire and as he looks at Rey, he can also feel her storm of emotions. Its pulsating, loud against his mind and its too consuming. It’s almost  _ suffocating _ . 

He steps back and pushes her away gently. Keeps her at arm’s length and wipes his swollen lips with the back of his hand. She swallows and covers her mouth.

_ There is no answers with him, child _ . 

The voice again. She tries to ignore it because it’s  _ Ben _ and everything is with him. Her  _ life _ is with him. 

_ Your destiny is bigger than being the companion of a slave _ .  _ You have a gift. A raw power that could rival even the greatest Sith or Jedi… _

Rey reaches for the band that is holding her hair up and releases it, shaking her hair out. It cascades down her back in a wavy curtain that makes Ben chew on his lower lip in anticipation. She reaches for the hem of her sleeping tunich and lifts it over her head, revealing smooth skin marred by light scars and bruises from the dangers of her work as a scavenger. His mouth goes dry at the sight of her modest breasts and he looks directly at her silently questioning: Do you want to do this?

She reaches for his hand and quietly guides his right hand to her right breast. He softly squeezes the small mound and she tilts her head back slightly, a soft moan escaping from her small mouth. He steps forward and lets his hand leave her breast and slowly wraps his arm around her thin and narrow waist. He pulls her flush against him and dips his face against the crook of her neck. 

“ I want you, Ben.” She whispers, “ I need you. At least for one night. Let me have this.” 

He’s amazed at how calm she sounds. He’s shaking and feels drunk on the emotions he’s experiencing between the both of them. Yet, this girl he’s known all his life stands before as a confident woman ready and willing to give every piece of herself to him. All Ben can do is nod against her throat and stumble through one word, “ O-okay--okay.”

The Force sings between them. The voice admonishes the foolish girl. And two lost souls become one on the floor of an salvaged shuttle.

It’s two days later that Unkar Plutt finds out about their coupling. The next two weeks are spent separated on saved rations and the mercy of Jakku’s unforgiving environment. Two weeks spent in solitude -- two weeks of nothing but their thoughts and the confines of their skeleton shelters with the eyes and ears of Plutt’s hired arms making sure they serve out their sentences. Two weeks of making sure the two knew that whatever Unkar Plutt said was law. 

The voice doesn’t invade her mind in that period. 

No, it’s when Rey’s heart and soul is crippled by the solitude and starvation. It’s when Rey feels as if she’s on death’s door -- when she realizes that her life on Jakku would end like the many others she’s seen in the desert. It is when she is lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling of her AT-AT shelter on the thirteenth day of her sentence by the hands of the Blobfish that Rey hears the voice again.

_ I should probably introduce myself, child. My name is Snoke. What’s your name? _

“ … Rey.”

_ What a beautiful name, Rey. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yep, the voice was snoke all along. lol 
> 
> thanks for reading! kudos and comments make a girl happy <3


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An awakening and a new apprentice

There is something beautiful about a weak mind. It’s malleable, a thing that can be twisted into anything that he needs it to be. Give them a false security and act as if he is a surrogate father that they wished they have had. Lauded them with praise and tender affection, but rip them apart when they become weak and complacent.

It’s how he developed his army. It’s why his chain of command are younger than the old generals that sit at the helm of dreadnaughts and star destroyers. They will never betray him and they will always protect him like the good, rabid children that they are.

It’s been a long time since he’s felt an awakening like this. Almost thirty years, to be exact, before the child had disappeared from his influence. But, this awakening is different. It’s special. There’s so much darkness bubbling around this child that it almost feels as if he has discovered a planet full of unimaginable wealth. Like a planet full of kyber crystals, ready to mined and exploited for power and dominance. 

Snoke needs it. A fleet of technological advances is nothing compared to the untamed power of a force user. The rabid cur doesn’t understand but he will make him understand. It will take time but she is supple and ready to be groomed. And, the best opportunity to achieve this is when they are at their weakest. The light within the girl was bothersome -- it persisted despite his attempts to force her to subdue it and tap into the potential that was the darkness within. 

He needs to crush it. Destroy it. Have her come to him in a blaze of glory. He  _ needs _ the scavenger.

_ You’ve been alone for so long.  _

No I haven’t, the girl thinks. Just… recently.

_ No.. I sense a loneliness in you that’s been there for years. Since… you were a little… child. Ah, yes. I see. You were abandoned. _

I wasn’t abandoned. They’re going to come back.

_ Who is going to come back? _

My parents.

_ You cling on to that hope… You cling to it because you’re lonely.  _

I’m not lonely. I have someone. 

_ He’s not there, is he? You can’t be together because your keeper says you can’t.  _

We… We … We will be together.

_ Of course you will. I believe you. _

How. Tell me how.

_ Hahaha. That’s it. That’s the spark I want to see. That’s the hunger I want to feel from you. In order to be powerful you must be hungry. _

Tell me how I can be with him.

_ Is that what you yearn for, Rey? A random boy? Is that what you hunger for? What about your parents, Rey? You can’t have both. _

I’ve waited fourteen years! I can keep waiting… I’m never going to leave this rock, after all. .

…. I have a lifetime to wait.

_ Hahaha… Ah… You are a foolish one. _

Foolish? To believe they’ll come back? I’m not foolish, I am angry! I’m angry that they haven’t came back. I’m angry that I’m starving because I let myself have something that I’ve always wanted. Wouldn’t you be angry, too?

_ Hmm, well, I would be angry. There are many things that I am angry at. For instance, I’m angry that a place like Jakku exists.  _

… Why?

_ Well, why should such a place that allows the abuse of children exist? Something like that fills me with much rage. I like to use that for good use. Channel it, allow it to grant me unimaginable power. You could — no — you  _ **_can_ ** _ do the same too. _

Back. In the graveyards. When I killed those men…

_ Yes… exactly. You did that. You could do more if you knew how to channel that anger. So… much… more… _

_ …. _

I can’t. I’m just a rat. Unkar has too many men. He would kill me before — Wait.

_ You’ve had an awakening. _

The Force.

_ Yes. That’s right. It is the ultimate power. With that power, nothing can stand in your way. I can teach you how to use it properly. I can show you the way to exact your revenge against those who have hurt you. I can show you how you can take back what is rightfully yours. _

“ Ben… “ Rey whispers aloud from chapped, cracked lips that were too painful to move. The scavenger closes her eyes and fights to keep down the lump in her throat and the impending tears that threatened to fall from the creases of her eyes. How many times could one cry until there was no more tears left to shed? 

Her body aches. It yearns for sustenance, for water, for  _ anything _ to keep her alive another day. There’s no more portions left and there’s barely any water left. The as the hours went on, so did her will to live. The light within growing dimmer and dimmer with each passing minute spent lying on her back, with a hand over her chest and the other outstretched. Sometimes her mind drifts away and focuses on what Ben is doing. Is he okay? Is he hurt? Sick? … Alive?

_ I can show you a way to save yourself… and him. But I need you to be my… apprentice. _

A chill runs down her spine. 

“ Who… are you?”

She can feel him grinning in the depths of her mind. She can feel the sensation of a cold caress of long, willowy fingers against her cheek, like a father offering his daughter an endearment. The scavenger can not see him but it is like he is there with her in that ancient AT-AT, watching with hungry eyes and wicked desire to make her his own apprentice. 

_ Someone who can teach you the ways to freeing yourself from the shackles of your servitude. Let me show you the potential you posses. There is a … creature a few meters away from your… home. I can feel it coming closer… Yes… it’s carrying a bag of portions and water.... _

_ … Go into the desert and take it from him. _

“ I am too weak…” 

_ Channel that weakness into power. Close your eyes, use that pain to channel the darkness within. Use it to give you the strength to get up. Yes… that’s right… Like that…! _

Her body hurts but she can feel the Force move within her. It channels the pain in her body into strength and slowly she rolls over onto her hands and knees before pushing herself up with a loud groan. As the pain radiates throughout her body, the Force leeches onto it, helping her focus on getting on her own two feet and she stumbles out of the AT-AT.

The sun is directly overhead and the heat is suffocating. But she sees the Teedo and the luggabeast its traversing the desert on and makes her way towards it. It's hard to walk and the pain is unbearable at times as her joints protest from the lack of nutrition, but she fights through it realizing that she needs to control and bend the Force into her favor. Her stumbles slowly morph into steady, determined strides as she forces the unexplained power to help her walk across the unforgiving sands.

The Teedo notices the woman and stops just short of her stepping in front of its luggabeast. She can’t see him beyond the masks and robes but she can sense the thoughts running through it’s mind. He wants to know why she’s stopping him and he’s wary of what this malnourished human will do. She has nothing of importance on her body so if she dies he could just keep on walking. The robes are dirtied, the boots are frayed, and she’s nothing but skin and bones so she won’t offer much of anything to the bone collectors. 

_ A simple mind, that creature is, Rey. Manipulate it. Tell it to give you what you want. _

She licks her lips and winces as another shock of pain shoots through her body. The Teedo pulls back on the reins, quelling its sudden nervous skittering. 

“ You will give me your food and water.” Rey says aloud. The Teedo stares at her and barks in its native tongue,  _ I will do no such thing, scavenger! _

Rey closes her eyes and feels the Force around her. She uses it to read the Teedo’s mind and infiltrate it, manipulating it and forcing it to follow her order. Her voice is steady and stern, “ You will give me your food and water. You will return home and never come here again.”

The Teedo looks at her for a few moments and then, as if under a hypnotic spell, reaches for it’s portions and water and tosses it onto the sand. It pulls the reins on the luggabeast, driving it away from Rey and walking back to wherever it had came from. 

Rey watches nervously as the Teedo disappears down into the dune below. When the creature is out of sight, she quickly grabs tone of the two jugs of water it had thrown into the sand and opens it up. She chugs at the water, coughing as she does so but not enough for her to stop drinking. 

_ Watch it, my child. You don’t want to go through it all. You still need to eat. _

Rey stops drinking the water, screwing the cap back on, and quickly grabs the discarded bag of portions and the other jug of water. She quickly makes it back to her AT-AT and drops the items onto the durasteel floor below. No longer can she feel the pain radiating throughout her body because the adrenaline from the experience is making her forget. 

She falls to her knees and grabs the bag of portions. Looking inside the bag, she notices at least two days worth of food.

_ Eat. There’s so much more for me to teach you, my apprentice.  _

Rey eats for the first time in thirteen days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! :D comments and kudos make a girl happy :)


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